Sad but true!

[frank mccune]

       Hi Folks:

       After our last club meeting, the club president called me and asked me if I noticed the overall decline in the club members.  He thought that the hand writing was on the wall that the club was destined to become extinct in the near future. I said that I too have noticed the same thing.

      We are a control line club that is down to 18 members and only about 6 of these members actually participate in flying.  Yes,  there are active RC clubs in the area but we are too old and stubborn to get into RC. Speaking of old membership, our average ages are close to 70!  This is misleading as we have one 50 year old young buck who slews the age average!

       On the bright side we are working on adding a new member to our club! He is only 78! Lol  He is anxious to join as he wants to start flying his old Veco stunter powered by a Torp .32! Lol

       Perhaps UC will be a thing of the past in not a too distant future.  In the meantime, there are still a nucleus of old timers in our club who still love flying UC!

                                                                                                          Be well all of you old timers,

                                                                                                          Frank McCune

[Mike Griffin]

Hi Frank

Last night and old friend by the name of Larry Richards called me and we talked for a long time about this very subject.  Larry cut kits for 25 years but quit a few years ago.  Larry produced some of the finest hand cut kits you   ever saw and are now considered a collectors item if you can find one..  Anyway, Larry and I were talking about how we had become tired over the years and as we aged our interest in flying models had begun to wane and we found ourselves with less drive to produce kits and how our desire to participate in producing, building and flying models started to fall off after many years of participation.  

Our club here in New Orleans is probably typical of most CL clubs around the country, it certainly is with yours the way you described it.  We have about the same amount of members that you do and just a handful out of the total membership that fly on a regular basis and we have one who is an expert flyer and competes in contests around the country.  But most of us who still fly are just casual sport fliers who just go out on a Sunday evening and probably do more talking than we do flying.

We still have a number of sources from which to buy CL kits and engines so supply has not become a critical problem but I wonder about the future as these folks age and we all pass on, who will take their places and be a continuing sources of supplies and materials?  Larry and I were talking about the health issues we both have had and that has played a major part in our decisions to slow down and in his case, to completely get out of the hobby and I don't know how much further I am behind him.  I just released the KA10 kit and it was a moderate success although most of the kits were shipped overseas where CL still appears to be stronger.  The only reason I mention that is because I struggled to get through the process of getting that kit out and was actually glad when the process was all done.

I often look at all I have accrued over the years as far as kits, engines, and supplies and think "I need to start thinning this stuff out"  but am overwhelmed by thinking about the time it will take to inventory everything, list it in the classifieds and get it shipped out if someone wants to buy it.  My poor wife will probably be stuck with trying to figure out what to do with it but at that point if she cant find someone to give it to, just throw it out.  Someone on here once said that one day, some widow was going to end up with every control line kit and engine on the face of the planet and be faced with what to with it.  May be true.

Over the years, there have been many post on here about the lack of new participants in our hobby and that eventually CL would pass into history and be a footnote in the annuals of hobbies and that may well be.  All I know is that I was able to enjoy it for a number of years and made some good friends while participating in it and don't regret any of it.   Like fishing, it provided a welcome escape from thinking about a world filled with ISIS, crooked politicians and other real and serious problems that are encroaching upon Western Civilization more and more every day.  It gives us some relief as temporary as it may be.

My daddy used to have a saying that went "Just ride that mule till it dies"...... I guess that is what I am doing with toy airplanes and the mule is beginning to get a little tired.

Mike

[david beazley]

It's not just CL in decline. The club we fly at is mostly RC but we have a few of us fly CL. I am the club treasurer ane our numbers are waning across the board. We have even reached out to the drone community but just figure they can fly anywhere and don't need to belong to a club, much less AMA. Gee, what happened to the AMA plan to embrace these guys?  Well President Brown, how's that working out for you?  

[john e. holliday]

With all the stuff to occupy peoples lives how can we expect to get people to try control line planes.   They are not covered in the magazines like when I was about 10 or 11 years old.   While Mom was grocery shopping I would be at the magazine rack looking at the magazines.  The store manager didn't seem to mind as I usually took one home after paying for it.   Free flight is the same way and was the main interest back then.  

When I joined the club and started flying with the guys, you were lucky if you got to fly twice.  Me I was lucky in that I had a place to fly at where I lived.   Even ball diamonds or football fields were available if no games were going on.   Kids and some times parents would come and watch.  Some would ask questions,   But, then the competition end of it started to grow and with the contests being on Sundays and at another location, the old circle would be vacant as it was when I got to fly my Guillows Rat Racer for the first time.  Mr. Brooks made the first flight for me.   Needless to say the old McCoy wasn't broken in completely and we only got a dozen laps on a 2 ounce tank.  Being a youngster I could get to the circle of Mom took me.

Later after I had gotten married and also having an accident a few months later I was not flying as much.  But flying got me to work and get back on my feet and fly again.   By then the circle had been moved in city park and we had a tree to contend with.  Park would not remove any of it, so would have to stand off center to fly stunt or combat.  Had quite a few guys started showing up to fly and a again it got so some only get a couple of flights.  I took a weekend of to go to a contest.  A week later I'm back at the circle and only a couple of guys show up.   I asked where are the others,  response was, they didn't know if I was going to be there or not.  I was considered the expert for some reason.   Things were good until I left for the NATS in 70.  When I made it back to the circle only one person showed up.   Guess the others found other things to do.

I even had a period of time in which I tried to get a local news letter out to the guys to let them know what was happening.  Then I got hooked on F2C competition and there was only one place to practice.  The Sunday regulars complained we would be hogging the circle.  Any body in the know that it takes several tanks of fuel to see if the plane was doing any thing.  So my pilot and I would go out during the week in the evening or on Saturdays and practice.   When after I finally gave up on racing and keeping a pilot I went back to just flying for fun with my carrier and stunt planes.   Got a few people going again  and was having monthly sessions where we would have some impromptu event.   Was going good until my son and a friends son started flying my planes and we got back to racing and carrier.   We had a few that would tolerate us.   But, as things would happen my work took over in which I was out of town for weeks at a time.   The other times I would be working nights and weekends.    So that meant less practice and we had to rely on our experience to do half way decent.   Then the son got married and his activities put a stop to competition.  We did get the step sons and Emmy out to Denver one year to fly in the Junior events.   But, I do believe the thought of competition would take too much time and they just wanted to fly for fun.  

Now Dave Trible has gotten us permission to use some park land for a circle.  We need to take care of the brainless kid that thinks its fun doing donuts in the circle.   I haven't been down there as much as I like with Church and family on Sundays.    Also it's no fun flying by one self unless I just want to go fly and relax.  But,  really I think the competition end of it is what drove people off.  I myself love competition and I think watching is more enjoyable, plus all the great people I have met through the years.  But now I think of all those that I met just flying for the pleasure of it.  The Topeka club had a fun fly and balloon burst a few weeks ago, which I attended.   Only put up three flights and enjoyed watching the others fly.   So if I show up at a contest, it may be to fly a couple of flights and BS the rest of the time.  Can't get local participation if we aren't here.

Didn't post fast enough.  Our RC club is dying because of all the park rules and the club dues.   Not every one is millionairs,

[Fredvon4]

I am fortunate in that the county is lazy and dumb... setting a noise ordinance is too much trouble
Fortunate also that when I asked the old cooter who is paid to administrate the $2.2 million dollar "county sports complex*" about flying my C/l airplanes, he was open to my proposal to not fly at stupid times or when kids were trying to practice base ball , football, or soccer

Been 11 months now flying there occasionally, first with Sean McEntee re-teaching me stunt flying before he got sent to the bad place to do his thing for God n country

I fly now with wife or from Tom Morris stooge

I do have and will prove AMA membership, FAA pseudo license, plus my USAA home owners insurance

Each time I do manage to fly--- I get an audience...and I am the kind of guy to stop (when safe) and invite the young guys n gals over to touch and see my stuff as I explaine how it works

In my immediate family, I did a good job exposing my daughters, and sons and their children or friends to my Ham radio and Model airplane hobbies

Meager as it may be, I know twenty or thirty years from now one or more will gravitate to this hobby

C/L hobby may grow...or may get even smaller...but I am confident that the FUN is self evident and C/L hobbywill continue on a larger or SMALLER scale

I have a strong suspicion who all I am going to WILL my hobby STUFF to ---so it does NOT end up in a land fill

IF you do not have a plan ,and suspect much or all you stuff will get trashed...GIT off your ass and document the stuff then select any one of the easy to find clubs or schools who could use it ----if you don't have a child, grand child, or great grand child interested

jest sayin...
Phreddy
Honoring the memory of me playing airplane with my dad since 1959

[Perry Rose]

I worked with 40 high schoolers over two years building models they could fly and take home. R/C with motor, prop and battery. Two or three took the planes home after we flew them in the school yard. I noticed that the kids didn't have any curiosity outside their ipads. The system has taught it out of them.

[Chris Belcher]

This is why I appreciate Mike Scott here in the Dallas/Fort Worth area so much. Some Saturdays he has all of his grandkids out flying! Doug Moon sometimes has his son out flying as well... This is where the future lies...in getting young people "hooked". I had 2 sons and tried to get them both hooked but it just didn't take

[Mark Scarborough]

As Bob Hunt proposed some time back,,, " each one teach one"

[Brett Buck]

I worked with 40 high schoolers over two years building models they could fly and take home. R/C with motor, prop and battery. Two or three took the planes home after we flew them in the school yard. I noticed that the kids didn't have any curiosity outside their ipads. The system has taught it out of them.

  In Napa we fly very near a skatepark, and a BMX track, and right next to a county walking path.  Some weekend days, there are maybe 100 cars parked and dozens of kids around the 10-18 age bracket walk by. Never once have they even paid any attention to what we were doing, much less express any interest. Almost no one pays any attention at all, and on the few occasions that someone does stop, it's usually grandparents out with babies or toddlers, and it's the grandparents who are interested, not the kids. Note this is not the duffer patrol, these are almost all very attractive and eye=grabbing NAT's quality airplanes with 4' bottom on the flights.

    What we do, despite whatever value we see in it, is *not interesting* to other people. I don't think there is any practical way to change that. Hence, my preference for maintaining the event as it stands, as it is clearly interesting to the current participants, instead of making radical changes to appeal to people who clearly don't care at all.

     Brett

[Steve Helmick]

Yep, just carry on the good fight, using the launching stooge as required, and don't worry much about the future of model airplanes in general. A few more generations, and it'll be gone.  Steve

[Tony Drago]

Spot on, John

[Chris Fretz]

Since I started back into flying the last 2 yrs. I can count on one hand the amount of people that have come up to me an ask about flying. Some younger kids say "oh wow what are those?" They watch about 2 flights an walk away. The rest don't even pay attention.

One retired guy walked up an said he hasn't seen anyone fly those in decades. He thought it was a dead hobby. Another time another older guy stopped down basically saying the same thing. He saw me flying a couple months later, well he said he heard me flying actually. He asked where to get them. I told him about Brodak's web site.

Basically got the same reactions back in the 90's too. One field we use to fly at back then was close to some businesses. Guys would come outside on their lunch break an watch for a wile.

I'm sure I ticked off more people from the noise then I've interested.